3 beliefs you need to let go to

start your agile journey

Antti Kirjavainen @anttiki

Scan-Agile 2015

The purpose of this talk

Give you ideas and concrete

practices to help people and

organizations

get rid of beliefs that

hold them back from embracing

the new paradigm of knowledge

work.

The new paradigm is clearly

attractive

Our beliefs hold us back

3 layers of culture

Practices, processes, rules

Values (stated)

Assumptions, beliefs(unconscious)

Source: Schein, Edgar (1992). Organizational Culture and Leadership: A

Dynamic View.

Why beliefs and assumptions are so

strong?

• Most things in a culture are built atop of those

• Lots of connections with other ideas, assumptions etc.

• Usually unconscious

• Conflicting ideas and assumptions do notfit with the ideas and assumptions that arebased on the old unconscious assumption

• The idea with less sticking points has lesschange to prevail than the connceted (old) one

10 years ago: Games for Learning

I used to design and produce games

for learning

• In collaboration with science teachers

• For primary school children

• ~10 years ago

• Agora Game Lab, University of Jyväskylä

• Problem: children’s misconceptions about

scientific phenomena

Why are there seasons?

Misconceptions about Science

• Hinder the children’s ability to learn aboutscientific phenomena

• The earlier conception has strongerconnections in cognition

• Scientific knowledge is inter-connected, new knowledge sticks if it fits with the existingassumptions

• A couple of misguided assumptions canhinder the child from learning most of relatedscience (e.g. astronomy and climate theoriesrelated to model of seasonal changes)

BELIEFS ABOUT KNOWLEDGE

WORK THAT HOLD US BACK

BATCH THINKING

”Delivering each batch of work has

costs, so it is most efficient to do it

all in one big batch”

Photo CC-2.0-BY-NC by Cameron Grant

Problems with batches or big

projects

• Assumption: big batches save money (true, but…)

• Unconscious tradeoffs:

• Losing the adaptibility to changes

• Risks are discovered and acted on late

• Testing of assumptions is done in the end

• Scope tends to get even bigger – scopecreep

• Long time to market

”Using specialists’ time just for what

they are best at is most efficient”

Problems with specialisation

• Loss of information

• The need to ask something competes with

the fact that people are already on their

next assignment

• Leads to multitasking

• Task-switching reduces effectiveness

• Lots of unfinished work, which is

potentially waste

100% UTILIZATION OF PEOPLE IS

GOOD FOR EFFECTIVENESS

Keeping people 100% utilized on

planned work is efficient

Photo by Walter Parenteau

Problems with 100% utilization

• No capability left to deal with surprises

• Results in low predictability if there is

variability (= surprises)

• Often leads to multitasking

• Task-switching reduces effectiveness

PROCESS ROLL-OUT POSITIVISM

New processes can be rolled out to

organizations and teams

Changes in an organization chart will

lead to similar changes in reality

Problems with rolling out new

processes, org charts

• People do not change anything in their

behaviour

• People do not understand the changed

process in the same way

• Lack of commitment towards change

• Hard to relate a modelled process to

everyday work

Dividing the organization to thinkers

and doers is efficient

Problems with separating thinking

and doing

• People far away from work have hard time

seeing the real problems

• People with most insight on improvement

opportunities are left out of work design

• Lessens commitment on improvement on

”doers”

• Takes meaning out of ”doers” work

HOW TO GET RID OF THESE

LEGACY BELIEFS?

Photo CC-2.0-BY by wecometolearn

Problems with using logic to help get

rid of old beliefs

• The old belief has lots of connections with other ideas, assumptions etc.

• The old belief is usually unconscious

• Conflicting ideas and assumptions do not fitwith the ideas and assumptions that arebased on the old unconscious assumption

• The idea with less sticking points has lesschange to prevail than the connceted (old) one

• Arguments against the old belief have lessexisting allies in the cognition

1. Experience

Photo CC-2.0-BY by Jim Sneddon

Games for Learning: Experience

• Safe experience

• Distanced from subject matter

• Chance for the child to experiment

different strategies, theories

• Constructed so that strategies based on

actual scientific theories work better

2. Reflection together

Photo CC-2.0-BY-NC by Juska Wendland

Games for Learning: Reflection

Together

• Compare experiences from playing the

game

• Form a collective opinion on what

strategies worked and why

• Confirmation on individual observations

from group

• Connect the experience to scientific theory

(at this point the experience has provided

connecting points to the children’s

cognition)

3. Application

Photo CC-2.0-BY-NC by Juska Wendland

Games for Learning: Application

• Application of ther newly learned theory to

another context

• To reinforce the newly formed theory

• I.e. Another exercise, project work etc.

SAME FOR KNOWLEDGE WORK?

Marshmallow Challenge

Tom Wujec, http://marshmallowchallenge.com/

Marshmallow Challenge

Experience

Reflection

Application

Step&4:&Describe&the&Developer&Policy&for&round&1&

Never/keep/a/customer/waiting

the/earlier/you/start/something,/the/earlier/

you/finish

At/this/point/I/paus/and/check/carefully/to/see/if/anyone/seems/to/object/to/that/statement./Usually/nobody/does,/because/it/sounds/obvious./One/of/the/purposes/of/the/exercise/is/to/illustrate/how/

false/that/statement/is./

Multitasking Name Game

Image CC-3.0-BY-SA by Henrik Kniberg

Multitasking name game

Experience

Reflection

Application

Ball Flow Game

Karl Scotland, http://availagility.co.uk/ball-flow-game/

Experience

Reflection

Application

Value Stream Mapping

Photo CC-2.5-BY-NC-SA by Michael Sahota

Experience

Reflection

Application

CONCLUSION

Assumptions and beliefs hold us

back

Practices, processes, rules

Values (stated)

Assumptions, beliefs(unconscious)

How To facilitate change in beliefs

1.Experience

2.Reflection together

3.Application in real context -

experiment

Links to experiences, games

• Marshmallow Challenge: http://marshmallowchallenge.com/

• Multitasking name game: https://www.crisp.se/gratis-material-och-guider/multitasking-name-game

• Ball Flow Game: http://availagility.co.uk/ball-flow-game/

• Value Stream Mapping: http://agilitrix.com/2010/07/use-value-stream-mapping-for-current-state-assessment/

THANK YOU!

Antti Kirjavainen

http://www.flowa.fi/

@anttiki

antti@flowa.fi

BONUS BELIEF

Control by rules, incentives and

status reports is effectivePhoto by Dneary

What kind of experience would help

get rid of this belief?

• To promote fostering trust instead of

building control mechanisms

• To demonstrate how command & control is

actually command & hope

• Please share your ideas on this with me!